cats

When you go to Julian Glander’s website, you’ve got some options. You can check out his animation, branded content, illustration, and games, or click on “beer,” “xmas,” “dogs,” “puking,” “hamburgers,” “blobs,” and “super cute.” I don’t know about you, but I appreciate any designer-artist whose range officially extends into adverb-adjective territory.

A fond farewell to “What Am I Looking At?” (WAILA), a web series that follows comedian Ali Clayton and guests to Chicago art openings. For the show’s final episode, Clayton, and the show’s producer, artist Patrick Bobilin, talk about art without fear, or fear of repercussions. It’s a show where you’ll hear comments like “That just reminds me of really stretched-out nutsacks” and “But did you like the emotion, or did you like the coolness?”. Patrick, you’re more than welcome to hang out and do a “We Went to” with us when you’re in New York next. [YouTube]

“Why Do Severed Goat Heads Keep Turning Up in Brooklyn?” asks writer Adrian Chen, as he goes full detective mode, putting on his best Peter Sellers moustache for the investigation. Hint: Minority groups point fingers at each other for the goat-head slaughter. [Daily Intelligencer]

Sotheby’s appoints Tad Smith as president and chief executive officer. Tad—who has one of the preppiest names out there—has previously served as president of the Madison Square Garden Company and Cablevision. He also likes to spend his time teaching; he’s an adjunct professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. [Sotheby’s, Business Insider]

Press release: “Art Basel and BMW have launched the BMW Art Journey, a first-of-its-kind award that enables selected artists to design a journey of creative discovery to a destination of their choice. Inspired by travel and the boundless diversity of places, encounters and experiences, artists will have the chance to conduct research, discover new ideas and themes, and create new work.” Translation: BMW will pay for artists travel. Vrooom! [BMW Art Journey]

Because I have but two interests, art and Game of Thrones: Last night, while watching artist Phil Collins’s film Tomorrow Is Always Too Long, I noticed that actress Kate Dickie, who plays Lysa Arryn in GoT, also features in the art film. In Dickie’s role as a TV psychic, she gives one of the strangest, most powerful monologues in the film—I highly recommend seeing it. There’s only one more screening at MoMA this week, today. [Cinefilm]

Pee-wee Herman is still very much around to fulfill your childhood dreams, or nightmares. Judd Apatow will produce a new Pee-wee Herman film, Pee-wee’s Big Holiday, a Netflix-only release. Production will begin in three weeks. [Pee-wee.com]

David Geers analyzes contemporary formalist painting, by artists ranging from David Ostrowski to Amy Sillman, as a political exercise and as evidence of ruin. Though the article tries too hard—Geers reads meaning into paintings when the evidence for said meaning—“as sombre explorations of indistinction, they depict collapse rather than perform it materially.” Anyway, read it. I’ll be online all day chatting with you about it on Twitter. [Frieze]

“The Hypocrisy of the Artistic and Critical Left,” a think piece that’s making the rounds, now has an e-flux forum devoted to it. Now you know where to air your frustrations or sing the article’s praises. [e-flux]

Happy National Adjunct Day! Most of your teachers will be at home, looking for other jobs. [Gawker]

The Aspen Art Museum has removed tortoises from their museum citing safety concerns. The turtle’s backs were being used as stands for ipads. This prompted a petition to free them from the tyranny of the museum’s curators. [Artnews]

So much for the golden equalizer of the Internet. Social media is stifling debate and cordoning off enclaves of like-minded people, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center and Rutgers. [New York Times]

A cat is not a child. It is a ward, and at best, a roommate. “But I cannot see a version of myself who is compelled to show pictures of my cat to strangers,” writes Jen Vafidis. “I did not give birth to this thing; it is an accident that we crossed paths.” [domesticity]

A “controversial” race-swapping artwork, which uses makeup to transform people’s skin color, is getting some flak for being racist. It seems well intentioned enough, it’s just kinda tame. [Artnet]

Paul Krugman notes that real estate prices in big cities like New York are driving people to places with fewer economic opportunities, and giving people like Rick Perry boasting rights for a high job growth rate when they should have none. [The New York Times]

It had looked like the Detroit Institute of the Arts was in the clear, thanks to some hefty donations which would basically buy the collection out of the hands of the city’s bankruptcy management. But it’s not in the clear yet. The “grand bargain” may be illegal. Cmonnn. [The New York Times]

Big Canadian news. Big donut news. Burger King has put in a 11.4 billion dollar bid to buy the Canadian donut chain, Tim Hortons. A few facts for Americans who may not fully understand the presence the chain has in Canada: The average Canadian spends $150 annually at Tim Hortons, higher than spending at any other store. Tim Horton was an actual person; a hockey player. And, my favorite bit of trivia—in 2004, the Royal Canadian Mint released a commemorative quarter, and distributed the new coin exclusively through Tim Hortons. That’s right—you couldn’t go to the bank to get this quarter, but you could go to a donut shop. [Vox]

More gems from Reductress, the women’s Onion: “Woman First in Family To Graduate College Without a Boyfriend.” [Reductress]

The Water Tank Project has started putting art on New York water tanks to raise awareness about sustainability and water usage. Jeff Koons and Laurie Simmons have work in this thing. [Animal New York]

Canadian politics are just as dumb as American politics. Ontario Progressive Conservatives are up in arms because Liberal leader Kathleen Wynne rode on a tractor the wrong way. Thank God she wasn’t holding a baby! [The Globe and Mail]

The Taipei Biennial 2014 just announced its artist list; its theme concerns the relationships between humans and non-humans. Artists like Sterling Ruby were chosen because they use polymers: “In the light, a new generation of artists is exploring the intrinsic properties of materials ‘informed’ by human activity, including polymers (Roger Hiorns, Marlie Mul, Sterling Ruby, Alisa Barenboym, Neil Beloufa, Pamela Rosenkranz) or the critical states of materials (the nebulizations of Peter Buggenhout, Harold Ancart or Hiorns).” Artists have been using all sorts of materials for ages, and for all sorts of reasons outside of interspecies connectivity, but who cares about that. [e-flux]

Red Lobster parent company Darden Restaurants sold the cheese-and-biscuits franchise to a capital equity firm. Hazlitt’s David Berry recaps the Lobster’s more glorious days. [Hazlitt via The Paris Review]

You’ll see lots of white people looking at Kara Walker’s “A subtlety” at the Domino Sugar Factory. According to Jamilah King, “This is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s reassuring that so many white people have a vested — or at least passing — interest in consuming art that deals with race. At the same time I found it unsettling to view art by a black artist about racism in an audience that’s mostly white. It reinforced the idea that black people’s histories are best viewed but not physically experienced.” [Colorlines]

In case you missed it: A performance made in honor of the late Ana Mendieta left chicken guts out front the DIA Foundation for the Arts. [Hyperallergic]

Now you can buy trading cards of female net artists. But cheerleading, really? Sorry, but I would’ve preferred a deck that shows actual stats where artists get HP and special attacks, not “cheer highlights.” [Etsy, via Anthony Antonellis]

The International Center for Photography will close its Midtown museum in January 2015. [Artnet]

Stay inside, New York. There are many ways to die by snow today. [The Awl]

Attendance at the Frick has more than doubled now that they’re borrowing Vermeer’s “Girl With the Pearl Earring.” Frick staff lets on that over 100,000 visitors have made their way into the collection since the October opening of Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals. [Real Clear Arts]

Can the art world ever recover from the influence of celebrity and entertainment on art? “No way,” remarked one curator at the Centre Pompidou-Metz. “And why would we, with such crossover programming in the upcoming year like Paparzzi! Photographers, Stars, and Artists?”* (*NOT A REAL QUOTE, BUT THIS IS A REAL EXHIBITION.) [e-flux]

Residents and business owners in the LES and and East Village want to keep SantaCon’s drunken hordes out of their streets. Let the protests begin. [Bowery Boogie]

Wow. Larry Gagosian has some harsh words for the new breed of collectors and partiers coming out to Miami. “Two years ago, the audience was a little more interesting from the perspective of the galleries that come here.” [Women’s Wear Daily, Alain Servais]

Ah! LACMA is starting up its Art and Technology program again—the very same one from the 1960s. They sent Claes Oldenburg to do research at Disney; John Chamberlain to Rand Corporation; Richard Serra to Kaiser Steel. Now it’s different; mostly, the program gives office space at the museum. [The New York Times]

Missed this one last week, but the Van Gogh Museum is authorizing 3-D reproductions of Van Gogh’s masterworks. $35,000 for Starry Night, y’all. The first round will debut in January, at the L.A. Art Show. [Los Angeles Times]

Do subjective end-of-year lists not make you angry? Then go ahead, read Complex’s 25 Most Important Artists of 2013 list. Francis Bacon, who just sold the world’s most expensive painting at auction barely scrapes by in the 22nd slot; Robert Indiana is just a nudge ahead of him at 21. Top artists include those who have collaborated with Lady Gaga (#10: Inez and Vinoodh) and Pharrell (#5: Daniel Arsham, #8: JR). Celebrity art collaborations ≠ Most Important Artists. [Complex]

Good news for those of you who couldn’t get tickets to Performa’s blockbusters! There are still free and open Performa events (a 24-hour group performance, a screening by the Gay Cable Network archive) and non-Performa exhibitions of puppets, comics, animation, and a queer experimental film festival.